The Agency's Posts

Grammys 2013: The performance mash-ups to dread: The best thing theGrammystelecast attempts to do is also its most tricky feat to accomplish:....
Read More>

Review: Laughs stolen in 'Identity Thief': The script for this revenge/road trip farce is a mess, but Melissa McCarthy is a gem and Jason....
Read More>

Kelly McGillis recalls making the 1986 blockbuster 'Top Gun': “I feel the need, the need for speed” Maverick and Goose are flying high once....
Read More>

Kristen Wiig joins Will Ferrell in 'Anchorman' sequel: Kristen Wiigis joining the cast ofWill Ferrell's "Anchorman" sequel. Knights of....
Read More>

'Lincoln' pierced ears, 'Argo' pecs? Talk about period drama: With his concave cheekbones, lanky build and grooved brow,Daniel Day-LewisreplicatesAbraham....
Read More>

De Niro's thoughts on some of his most memorable films: cWith a career that stretches back to the 1960s,Robert De Nirohas been in more than his share....
Read More>

Saturday NIght Movie Pick: <iframe width="350" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NApJ
Read More>

Justin Timberlake to perform at the Grammy Awards: TheGrammy Awardsstill have the ability to surprise. The Recording Academy unveiled this morning....
Read More>

Rediscovering Lee Marvin's gritty brilliance: The versatile Oscar-winner, who died at 63 in 1987, is the subject of a new biography, a....
Read More>

W. Kamau Bell gets talk-show lessons from Chris Rock: W. Kamau Bell, host of FX's "Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell," said he is trying....
Read More>

Amanda Seyfried says 'Mean Girls' was her 'best work': Amanda Seyfriedis getting quite a bit of love for her latest films "Lovelace" and"
Read More>

SAG Awards 2013: 'Argo' a go-go; Day-Lewis now Oscar frontrunner: A big win for Ben Affleck and cast raises the film's best picture chances in the Oscar race,....
Read More>

Bono reveals details about new U2 studio album: A newU2album is rattling (and humming) to life. Inan interviewwith England's Sun newspaper,....
Read More>

Jenna Lyons, the Woman Who Dresses America: IT’S hard to miss Jenna Lyons. About nine feet tall and slim as a mink, often....
Read More>
Matt Groening discusses 'The Simpsons' hitting 500 episodes
Posted on: 02/21/12
Share/Save/Bookmark

Matt Groening had a 'vague idea of invading pop culture.' His invasion, 'The Simpsons,' became an occupation. After 500 shows, there are still stories to tell.

 

The Simpsons of Springfield, U.S.A., will mark their 500th episode as a TV family Sunday. "The Simpsons," in its 23rd season on Fox, is already the longest-running cartoon, the longest-running situation comedy and the longest-running scripted prime-time series in the history of American television.

There is something especially improbable about this particular household, with their goggle-eyes and cantilevered overbites and complexions betokening an advanced case of jaundice, claiming these crowns. And yet it is exactly in the spirit of the show, embedded in its seemingly contradictory quantum mechanics: They are losers who win, even as they lose, if for no other reason than they have one another. This remarkably stable long-term relationship is at once their horrible fate, and their good fortune.

On the Saturday before the airing of the 499th episode, I sat down over soft tacos, chile rellenos and mole tamales with "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening in a Oaxacan restaurant south of Hollywood, not far from where he lived in the days before the series made him an international household name. (I should say now, in the spirit of transparency, that I knew him then, when we were working for competing alternative newspapers in the early 1980s — Groening was writing for the L.A. Reader, which also published his comic strip "Life in Hell," which he still draws weekly — and have since.)

"I had this vague idea of invading pop culture," Oregon native Groening said of his early days in Los Angeles, which he chose over New York as the warmer, drier place to live in poverty while planning that coup. "I remember hanging out, just down this street, in Astro Burger with [artist friends] Gary Panter and Byron Werner and scheming how to do it. Gary had written an art manifesto about it and Byron said, no, that we were sell outs, as we split a burger three ways."

And now: Three days after our lunch, Groening received a star on the Walk of Fame, to go with the one "The Simpsons" already holds. The art toy company Kidrobot, which produces a line of Simpsons figures, has now added one of their creator, holding a big pencil in one hand and a sketch ofHomer Simpson in the other. A seventh season of his other cartoon series, "Futurama," revived by Comedy Central after being canceled by Fox, is in production. And it was announced this week that, thanks to a $500,000 endowment, there is a Matt Groening Chair in Animation at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

"I think we were in the right place at the right time," he said of the series' long life and global reach. "Audiences were ready again for a prime-time animated TV show. We were the first out of the gate and, using a very conservative template of a family sitcom, found a way to tell jokes in many different styles, from slapstick to references I don't even get. There are really obvious pratfalls and stuff taken from traditional cartoons, but there's also a guest appearance by Thomas Pynchon. It's really crazy that something so quirky is so popular, but whatever that mix is, it works."

He recalled the company sitting down "for a table read of the 200th episode, and that was a staggering number. David Mirkin, one of the executive producers, said, 'Well, we're halfway home.' And everybody laughed because it was obvious that there was no way we would be on for 400. So now to have done 500 is … really fatiguing."

If the series, developed with James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, is no longer at the center of the cultural discussion — "We're not the new kid in town and haven't been for a couple of decades now," says Groening — it is because it has permeated the culture. It has seeped into the common soil, generating everything from toys (recently banned in Iran) and comics and trading cards to academic papers with titles like "'The Simpsons Movie': Critiques on Consumerism and Environmental Problems" and "Tones of Morality Through Layers of Sarcasm: The Simpsons and Its Underlying Themes."

"I've been in a street market in Argentina where somebody took pieces of chalk and carved Simpsons figurines out of them," says Groening, "and of course there are Simpsons Russian nesting dolls. Wherever you go, somebody has appropriated the thing, and it's off-model and totally delightful."

Situation comedy is a kind of paean to self-destructive human foolishness in which the foolish humans never quite destroy themselves. (Because there is always a next week.) There is a lot of celebration in "The Simpsons'" satire: Groening describes the show as "'a bunch of writers and animators trying to be as funny as possible and still tell stories with heart. James L. Brooks insisted from the very beginning that the characters had to be real and if it were just a cartoon he wasn't interested in pursuing it. And I think that was a really smart thing."

"The Simpsons" of today is certainly a different show than in its first season, when it was rendered in a handmade squiggly line and more narrowly played with the elements of classic family sitcoms. The ratio of domestic humor to pop-cultural or political satire to conceptual weirdness that makes up the mature series varies from episode to episode, to the delight or dismay of its followers, but the show has been remarkably consistent over the decades.

The current season has parodied "Mad Men," "The Social Network," the lachrymose punditry ofGlenn Beck and young-adult literature (in the framework of a caper film). But it also has Bart reading "Little Women" to the school bullies, Marge discovering Ethiopian food (Lisa: "They're using pancakes as spoons!" Bart: "Let's see what else they do wrong!"), and a strangely lovely Christmas episode, "Holidays of Future Passed," that takes family into its imperfect but not hopeless future.

Even after half a thousand episodes, are there stories Groeningwants to make sure to tell before the still-not-in-sight end? "Mostly it's revealing back stories of some of the characters we've never dealt with. We have a character we call Squeaky-Voiced Teen, which is [Dan] Castellaneta doing a 1940s Hollywood teenager. We've never given him a name; I'd like to know a little bit more about that guy.

"Once at Fox 20 years ago, they asked, 'What would you like to see? We'll do anything.' I said, 'Well, how about a 600-foot-tall statue of Homer Simpson in West L.A., and at midnight he tilts his head back and laughs uproariously all over Los Angeles?' And you could eat lunch in his head, which would turn 360 degrees. They said, 'Be more realistic.' I said, 'OK, how about a blimp shaped like Homer that flies around the world?'"

In a sense, that's exactly what happened.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com


COMMENTS
Be the first to post a comment!


Post A Comment:




  • It's 2020! Start booking roles in commercials, fashion, films, theater and more with The Agency Online!

  • NEW WORKSHOP with Barbara Barna & Sean De Simone!

    Hi Everyone and Happy Summer! Sean at Sean De Simone casting and Barbara Barna are teaming up for a super informative and fun Hosting for Home Shopping workshop. A great opportunity for established or experienced TV Hosts and Experts interested in learning how to get noticed and how to get in....
  • MASTERCLASS W. Robin Carus & David John Madore

    A Special Offer for the Agency Community, from one of our favorite NYC Casting Directors! EMAIL FacetheMusicWithUs@gmail.com Or Eventbrite To Sign Up! Class Size is Limited.
  • Don't Fall Into The Comparison Trap

    Hi Everyone! As the second installment in an ongoing series of features by the Agency's amazing community, here's some sage advice from our own Regina Rockensies; a humble (& awesome)veteran we've had the pleasure of working with for a long time. Have an excellent week! : ) - The Agency....
  • One Model's Agreement

    Hi Everyone! As the first piece in an ongoing series of original articles by the Agency community, here's a short reflection on some of the values of professional acting & modeling that we can all keep in mind for our next casting. Good luck on your castings &shoots this week! : ) -....




 
home       castings&news       privacy policy       terms and conditions      contact us      browser tips
Official PayPal Seal